Count to ten, but WHY?

About calming down by counting to ten...
Counting to ten only works if you're breathing slowly and deeply and looking at (or thinking of) the sky or something else airy and big and peaceful. The purpose of counting to ten is to let the adrenaline pass and to think of some good options from which you can choose. If you count to ten holding your breath, holding your frustration, with a roaring anger in your ears, the adrenaline isn't dissipating—it's just being focused into a beam of extraordinarily dangerous power.

While you're breathing, you might want to think, "I love these people," or "whatever I say could last forever." Think of what you want to be and what you want to create. See what you want, and what you don't want.
A Loud Peaceful Home
photo by Sarah Elizabeth

Beauty and options

I want to present a portal to a beautiful piece of writing by Robyn that all unschoolers might want to read (or re-read) called "The Beautiful Park". I won't quote from it, because anything said is a spoiler. It is experienced anew each time it is read.

I will quote from something I saved as "Robyn Coburn on Giving Children Options":

"The idea of Unschooling is for parents to be the facilitators of options, the openers of doors, the creators of environments of freedom, and the guardians of choice, not the installers of roadblocks and barriers."

—Robyn Coburn

more by Robyn Coburn
photo by Karen James

Actual paths, and other choices

I love the potential in this photo. There is too much to explore, but the options are up, down, through, around. It reminds me that we live in the moment that connects the past and the future.

The world is too big for anyone to see everything. History will never all be discovered or known. The best we can do for ourselves and our children is to view their surroundings with wonder and curiosity. We can help them experience small things and large, old things and new.

SandraDodd.com/decisions
photo by Sukayna
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Options and possibilities

Jennifer Wells wrote:

Sit with your child and notice what they love. Offer options and possibilities and help them do as much as they want of what they love. Let them explore, refuse, experiment, and leave aside—in that process they will learn and learn and learn!

—Jennifer Wells

SandraDodd.com/being
(a directory page about ways to be with, and for, children)

photo by Amber Ivey

Warm (not cold)

If every conscious decision is taken with the intention of getting closer to the way one wants to be, then in a "getting warm / getting cold" way, it's not nearly as distant as one might have thought. You never even have to leave your regular house, car, family. It's right where you are, only the thoughts are different.


May you have warm relationships, warm feelings, a warm home, warm food and a warm bed.

The top paragraph is a quote from SandraDodd.com/factors
photo by Sandra Dodd

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In 2011, this went out in January, during summer in the southern hemisphere. Greetings, readers in Australia and New Zealand! Have some warmth in a better season. I don't think Brazil or South Africa need much heat, and most other readers are equatorial or northerly.

The whole world could use the warm relationships and feelings, and I wish everyone good options!

From the inside...

Debbie Regan wrote:

"From the outside, unschooling may look like no chores, no bedtimes, no education, no discipline, no structure, no limits, etc. But from the inside, it's about learning, relationships, living with real parameters, partnership, navigating turbulence, making connections, joy, curiosity, focus, enthusiasm, options, following trails, fun, growing understanding, opening doors..."

—Debbie Regan

the original
photo by Kathryn Robles
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What's important?

Debbie Regan wrote:

What is important for your family—peace? joy? doing fun things? well-being? growing and learning? comfort? delight?...

What can you do to enhance what's important—more flexibility? more listening? more engagement? more calm? more kindness? more fun ideas? more soft places? more interesting/happy options? more generosity? more creativity?...

—Debbie Regan

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Eleanor Chong
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How you view life

"Unschooling is a way of viewing life as filled with choices, not 'have to's'."

—Pam Sorooshian

Find your options
photo by Rosie Dawn Todd

Joyful, fearless moment

Right now, it's much more important to live in the moment with your kids, absorb information about who they are and what they like, and present options with joy and free of fear, than to focus on what this will look like when they're grown, or next year, or even next week. Fear and worry transmit to them.

It helped me to remind myself when they were choosing lots and lots of sweets or cakes and I was still afraid it would harm them physically (it never did), that a belly ache is far easier to mend than broken trust.

—Jessica Hughes

SandraDodd.com/eating/balance
photo by Tara Joe Farrell
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The kinder thing, the better thing

The best problem-solving skills I can suggest are to live by principles and to base each tiny decision on those principles.

Living by Principles

Do the more peaceful thing, the more learning-oriented thing, the more relationship-building thing, the kinder thing, the thing you wish someone had done for you when you were that age. If you don't think of two options before you act, you haven't made a decision at all.

Make the Better Choice
photo by Sarah Elizabeth
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Compare and appreciate

When trying to decide whether unschooling is working, remember to compare it to what would be going on if your kids went to school. They’d be doing six different things (homework) not of your choosing or theirs. And you would be expected to oversee/help.

They would have been taught by school NOT to fraternize with others; they would be less likely to play together.

So don’t compare it to your imagined ideal. Compare it to other real options, and then appreciate what you have.

The big upside
photo by Sarah Dickinson

Choosing "better" better

Jen Keefe wrote:

Choosing peace over anything else seems so obvious. Except when I didn’t know there were more peaceful options I thought I was choosing them. I guess I thought the least unkind or least chaotic choice was choosing peace- if I even realized there was a choice, or that peace was a goal.

Last night the kids and I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. watching The Office. We typically go to sleep earlier than that but we were so into the show (we are binge watching and are at the place where Robert California took over).

We stayed up later so we slept later. So we went and got subway for lunch and brought it to the pool. The kids got chips and cookies and soda. That’s not a big deal anymore, but it used to be.

Now they are swimming so happily while I sit here typing this and chatting with them. It’s so... peaceful. As much as I loved my kids and was learning to parent gently this is not the way I was headed. I wouldn’t have had this moment, or the moments last night, or those moments this morning when we snuggled in bed right after we woke up, watching more of The Office. I wouldn’t know who my kids are.

This is better. It’s just better.

—Jen Keefe
(March 2018)

There is a bit more of that at Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Janine Davies
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"The" path

Lots of the photos I have these days are of paths. I love them. They're taken by people who were there, about to walk that very path, seeing things to the sides, hearing birds, or the wind, or other people. But we only see one view of one path.

The symbolism and the idea of a person being on his own path can be confusing and restricting, if others are trying to manage who walks where, and how. Path, trail, course, curriculum—they all can be about a pre-determined, inflexible way to go.

We only see our own paths by looking backwards. Find joy, today, in options and twisty turns. You're still on your path.

Hard paths and soft ones
photo by Amy Milstein

Choose the good things

No parent has to do anything. They choose to do things.
. . . .
Through all the innumerable factors, how DO people decide?

By deciding what principles they are following. Each principle one clings to eliminates about half the choices in the world easily, and in a good way. Each additional principle eliminates some more options, until the world becomes manageable.

One of my guiding principles is that I want my children's worlds to be sparkly.

There goes the dull and the darkness. Easily not chosen, not an option.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/sparkly, 2004
photo by Irene Adams
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Growth is good

Principles are beliefs, touchstones, things a person bases decisions around.

The idea that one can't make a choice without considering two or more options isn't a principle. It's a logical fact.

The idea that choices can lead a person nearer to the way she wants to be might be the principle that growth is good and growth is possible.

SandraDodd.com/betterchoice
photo by Noor JontryMasterson

Options beyond

Children and parents both will find many choices, crossroads, options and surprises as life unfolds.

We see an opportunity, or a passageway, or a place to sit for a moment, but we can't know what the effect will be of choosing that or opting out.

Living with curiosity and joy, acceptance and calm, will help you through surprises and through lulls. There will be other paths to take, other places to rest.

SandraDodd.com/unseenfuture
photo by Ester Siroky
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Not what, but why?

When someone expressed shock that unschoolers felt TV was okay in any amount, Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

I wouldn't say that books are ok in any amount because it isn't *what* a child is doing that's important, it's *why* the child is doing it. A child who reads all day long because he has many options and his parents appreciate the value in choosing what you want to do is in a good place. A child who reads all day because his mother picks at him constantly when he's in her presence isn't in a good place.

I feel that TV is a resource like any other and that given the freedom to do so kids will use it when they need it and not use it when they don't, just like any other resource.

—Joyce Fetteroll

["TV" could be video, games, YouTube...]
SandraDodd.com/tvchoice
photo by Heather Booth

Bigger, friendlier world

Karen James wrote:

Unschooling, done with too much attention on the one way of living being the only right way, can make the world seem smaller, scarier and full of confrontation.

Unschooling done with the understanding it's one choice among many, makes the world a bigger, friendlier, more dynamic place.

—Karen James

Find your options
photo by Hinano
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Around the corner

Sometimes there are deadlines and commitments. This week, for us, a baby shower, and a college graduation. If Keith misses his pain-clinic appointment, he might need to wait weeks.

Much more often, though, life has more options, more leeway. A path or choice might be reconsidered.

Be accepting, if you can, when you can, of surprises. We don't know for sure what is around the corner, no matter how familiar the road is.

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Cathy Koetsier
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Sleepy feels good

When there are options, feeling sleepy and choosing to go to bed can be warm, wonderful feelings. How sweet, to have a clean bed waiting, and to want to get into it.

On one small bit of gratitude, one can step up and see another one, and another.

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Sarah Dickinson
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